Redistricting probe by Sonoma County District Attorney finds Board of Supervisors, county staff violated transparency law

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors and county staff members violated California’s open meetings law during the county’s disputed redistricting process, District Attorney Jill Ravitch’s office has determined.

An investigation by the district attorney found two instances where the board and county officials did not comply with the law, but those violations did not influence the redistricting outcome, Ravitch’s office concluded.

The findings were made public in a letter Thursday from Ravitch’s office, which began an investigation in December, at the request of County Counsel Robert Pittman, the county’s top lawyer. Complaints from residents also spurred the review, Ravitch indicated in her letter.

In the first instance, according to the District Attorney’s Office, the Board of Supervisors did not properly notify the public about its reasons for entering a closed-door meeting on Nov. 19, where the discussion centered on potential legal threats over the county’s redistricting.

That meeting has been at the root of a bitter rift between supervisors Lynda Hopkins and Chris Coursey over redistricting. Their dispute, in part, roiled subsequent weeks of public debate late last year over the new map redrawing boundaries for the five supervisorial districts.

In the second instance, investigators found the board held an “inappropriate” serial meeting in mid-November when staff compiled a memo summarizing supervisors’ comments on redistricting and shared it with all five board members outside of a public meeting. Investigators found no evidence the summary was publicly disclosed.

Ravitch said, however, that the two instances did not legally undermine the redistricting process, “either because no formal action was taken or because there was substantial compliance with the Brown Act,” Ravitch said in a Wednesday letter to Pittman, released Thursday by the county, that described the investigation’s findings.

The investigation faulted the Board of Supervisors as a whole and unnamed county staff.

The investigation found the board chair at the time, Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, had erred in relying on Pittman to document the legal threats she reported as the basis for the closed meeting rather than cataloging them herself.

In the other violation, unnamed county employees were responsible for the memo shared with board members and not with the public, Ravitch’s stated in her letter, which comprised the investigative report, according to her office.

Hopkins said the findings, relayed to her Wednesday by County Administrator Sheryl Bratton, “caused me to revisit how we approach closed session “holistically.”

But she defended the redistricting process and the final decision, a map approved by the board Dec. 14 — over the objections of at least nine of the county’s 19 appointed redistricting commissioners, who accused the board of ignoring their recommendations and overlooking their work.

“If there was not an opportunity for the public to comment or participate in the discussion making process, there would have been a much stronger finding and a different conclusion,” Hopkins said in a Thursday interview.

Coursey said he welcomed the district attorney’s scrutiny and findings but was “disappointed it took an investigation by the county’s top prosecutor to confirm this error.”

“Speaking out about this matter in December was not an easy decision, and I take no pleasure from the results of this investigation,” he said in a Friday morning written statement. “But even if the consequences can be painful, I will always work to err on the side of transparency in government, and speak up when I feel we can do better.”

Training on 69-year-old law

No sanctions or fines were proposed. Ravitch’s office recommended the board and aligned county staff take updated training on the Brown Act, which governs transparency for local governments, and publicly post the memo and the documents that formed the board’s basis for entering closed session on Nov. 19.

The investigation was launched after Pittman requested Ravitch’s office look into the circumstances of the Nov. 19 closed-session meeting.

Sonia Taylor, a Santa Rosa political activist who works as a graphic designer for campaigns, also filed complaints accusing the board of Brown Act violations. Ravitch sent her a letter on Thursday summarizing the investigation’s findings about her four complaints.

“I have been very concerned about the county's compliance with the Brown Act during their conduct of the recent redistricting process, and filed five Brown Act complaints covering what I consider specific Brown Act violations made by the County,” Taylor said in a written statement.

At the time Taylor had not fully reviewed the findings and said it was “too soon for me to make complete comments.”

Taylor has a fifth complaint, filed Monday, that the District Attorney’s Office is still reviewing, according to Ravitch’s letter.

Board’s fractious redistricting process

The existence of the investigation was not confirmed by The Press Democrat until Wednesday, and questions posed by the newspaper prompted county officials on Thursday to release the letters summarizing the findings.

They show official scrutiny, by the county’s top prosecutor, of a fraught and highly political process tied to the federally required decennial effort to redraw local district boundaries.

The Board of Supervisors was most involved from October to December, when the process became increasingly contentious as supervisors, constituents, other elected officials and members of the board’s advisory committee debated equitable boundary lines that met the legal requirements.

Tensions came to a head in early December when Coursey accused the board of holding the Nov. 19 closed session to discuss redistricting under what Coursey called a “bogus” pretense.

Hopkins had requested the confidential meeting after residents in her west county district told her that constituents were raising money to sue the county over its redistricting process. She also referred to social media posts and emails that accused the board of gerrymandering.

County records obtained by The Press Democrat in December revealed talk of residents pooling money to hire a lawyer, angry social media posts and emails, but did not contain an explicit threat of litigation.

In her findings, Ravitch noted the board should have disclosed the documentation of the threats.

The documents that were made public by the county in December included a handwritten summary by Pittman of the potential legal threats conveyed to him, mostly by Hopkins.

Pittman said Thursday in an interview that Coursey’s public questioning of the closed session prompted him to request the DA’s office look into the matter.

“Having it out there without addressing it would have undermined the board’s decision, so we asked the DA to look into it,” Pittman said.

Letting the accusations go without an investigation “would have called into question the legitimacy of the redistricting decision,” Pittman said. “There were allegations that they had improperly drawn the map behind closed doors.”

Reviews by top prosecutor rare

Pittman said the DA’s findings did not jeopardize the final map, which the county forwarded to state for final approval earlier this year. It will govern two contested elections for board seats in June.

The request from the County Counsel’s Office to the DA for such a review is not a usual move, according to Pittman.

However, since joining the county in 2011, Pittman said he did not know of another time where the county made such a request.

“If a supervisor questions the veracity or the justification of your chief lawyer, then that can’t reviewed by your chief lawyer, that has to go to your DA,” said Board of Supervisors Chair James Gore. “That’s basic government checks and balances.”

Hopkins said she did not believe the findings substantiated Coursey’s “allegations of a bogus closed session.”

However in a letter responding to Taylor’s complaints, Ravitch wrote “While we agree that it is debatable whether these messages constituted a threat of litigation, as stated above there was no action taken and therefore no basis for our office to take action other than as summarized in this letter.”

Coursey said he favored an investigation with a wider scope and was disappointed the district attorney’s review did not go beyond meeting notices and documentation.

“Serious allegations were made in the Nov. 19 closed session about manipulations of the redistricting process. Some of those allegations were aimed at me, and I brought them to light at the time because I want the public to have faith and trust in the process that made significant changes to our voting districts,” Coursey said. “When I asked County Counsel Bob Pittman to request the DA (and the state Attorney General, by the way) look into the matter, it wasn’t to investigate our meeting notification practices, it was to investigate the charges of gerrymandering that were being thrown around at the time. It’s unfortunate that this investigation not only leaves unanswered the question of whether those claims were true or false, but that it apparently wasn’t even considered.”

In a written statement, Bratton, the county administrator, said the county is “already working to schedule” the Brown Act training and is posting the materials noted by the DA’s office in its findings.

“Public transparency is a top priority to the Board of Supervisors as well as all County staff, and, as part of that, we are committed to abiding by all aspects of the Brown Act in how we conduct county business,” the statement read.

Gore said he understood the concerns that prompted the investigation but reiterated that the board’s process was legal.

“This was under a pressure cooker of not just time but also dissension among the board which led to that unease, but once again there was no finding of fault,” Gore said. “It was justified and yet we have to continue to do more to manage the process.”

You can reach Staff Writer Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MurphReports.